LETTER 10. TO YU. M. LARIN¹
[End of July — Beginning of August 1918]

Comrade Larin!

It is necessary to write a small brochure (30—40 pages of small format) on the composition and activity of the Supreme Council of the National Economy.

This is absolutely vital both for Europe and for the peasantry.

Clearly, simply, with facts to recount:

(a) the participation of workers' organizations.

(β) the non-syndicalist, namely communist (Marxist) character of the construction (that is, of the new social order, system).

(γ) the subordination (that is, the breaking of the resistance) of the capitalists.

(δ) practical successes (we took inventory of all manufactures: figures) 5—10 of the best examples, etc.

(ε) What still remains to be done?

(ζ) The new role of trade unions

(ηα) their growth

(ηβ) their numerical composition now

(ηγ) their role: they manage production

(θ) The number of nationalized enterprises, and so forth.

Lenin.

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¹ According to Yu. M. Larin, this letter was not received by him, which is evident from his subsequent reply to an inquiry from L. A. Fotnyeva (former secretary of the Council of People's Commissars): "...The letter from Vladimir Ilyich sent to you (concerning the composition of a brochure on the Supreme Council of the National Economy) was never received by me. Perhaps it relates to the time when (in 1918) I was sent to Berlin to conduct negotiations with the Germans, and was prepared for delivery upon my return. In any case, shortly after my return, I received a letter from Vladimir Ilyich on a similar theme, only of broader scope — to write about the Soviet Republic in general, not only about the Supreme Council of the National Economy, in order to acquaint the foreign countries and our population with what we have achieved in a year. For this purpose Vladimir Ilyich subsequently issued a directive to all departments (see p. 139 of the Collection. — Ed.) to provide me with everything I should request. But the material supplied by the departments proved to be rather unsatisfactory, and we were forced to abandon the compilation of such a concrete report of the government for the first year of our rule, a thought which apparently displaced